logo
Brief Publisher Logo
FACT BRIEF

Did election results in 2020 raise new questions about pollsters' methods and assumptions?

Saturday, November 21, 2020
By Sabrina Scoggin
Copy link
email
Copy featured image
email
YES

Early assessments of polling accuracy in 2020 results point to new questions about methods and assumptions. Unlike in 2016, polls generally predicted the correct presidential winner, but there were plenty of surprises in the results. Pew Research notes that errors in 2020 favored Democrats, pointing to "a systematic cause or set of causes." These could include:

  • Greater responsiveness among Democrats to polls
  • Shyness among Trump supporters about expressing their preference
  • Underestimates of enthusiasm for Trump
  • The COVID-19 pandemic's effect on voting and campaign conduct

"Polling errors for Senate candidates were quite large," Sam Wang, a Princeton neuroscientist and polling analyst, writes. "Republican candidates had a considerable reservoir of support that was not apparent." Overall, he told Scientific American, "at some level we should stop expecting too much out of the polling data."

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
Pew Research Center: Understanding how 2020 election polls performed
Princeton: Senate poll error—GOP undecideds came home
Scientific American: Why polls were mostly wrong
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
Gigafact
Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.
FACT BRIEF BY
Brief Publisher Logo
Latest fact briefs
facebook
twitter
email
email
About fact briefs published on Gigafact
Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer “yes/no” answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact —a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. See all fact briefs here.